Energy | World Change Cafe

Chomsky: Is the U.S. Gearing Up for the Destruction of Iran?

Iran sits at the top of US concerns about keeping control of Middle East oil-producing regions, preparing for serious violence if other means do not suffice. [...more]

Energy, Environment, Nuclear Power, Social Justice, War Comments (0)

How to Solve Our Economic and Environmental Crises

Everything from our food systems, water sources, oceans and deserts is negatively influenced by our obsession with mining, transporting and burning carbon-based fossil fuels. [...more]

Disease, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Green Living, Health, Sustainability Comments (0)

Brace Yourself: This Is the Tip of the Iceberg for Oil-Induced Enviro Catastrophes

After considering laughably titled solutions like the top hat (a containment dome), the junk shot (a pressurized blast of golf balls and shredded tires) and worse, British Petroleum has proven one thing above all else: When the fossil fool hits the fan, it simply has no plan. [...more]

Energy, Environment, Fascism, Government, Pollution, Sustainability, Transportation Comments (0)

It’s Time To Deal With Peak Oil

The “Peak Oil” concept — that the world’s petroleum-production rate will soon reach its maximum and commence an inevitable decline, with negative economic consequences — has been around in scientifically articulated form at least since 1998; long enough to see it confirmed in significant ways. [...more]

Energy, Environment, Transportation Comments (0)

China or the U.S.: Which Will Be the Last Nation Standing?

Silly me. Here I had thought that world leaders would want to keep their nations from collapsing. They must be working hard to prevent currency collapse, financial system collapse, food system collapse, social collapse, environmental collapse, and the onset of general, overwhelming misery—right? But no, that's not what the evidence suggests. Increasingly I am forced to conclude that the object of the game that world leaders are actually playing is not to avoid collapse; it's simply to postpone it a while so as to be the last nation to go down, so yours can have the chance to pick the others' carcasses before it meets the same fate. [...more]

Consumerism, Economics, Energy, Environment, Fascism, Global Warming, Government, Hunger, Poverty, Social Justice Comments (2)

The Meaning of Copenhagen

It was the pivotal international conference of the new century. Tens of thousands showed up, including heads of state, officials at all levels of government, representatives of environmental organizations, and ordinary citizens from nearly 200 countries. Scientists had warned that, without a strong agreement to reduce carbon emissions, the consequences for civilization and the world's ecosystems would be cataclysmic. [...more]

Economics, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Government, Sustainability Comments (0)

Temporary Recession or the End of Growth?

Everyone agrees: our economy is sick. The inescapable symptoms include declines in consumer spending and consumer confidence, together with a contraction of international trade and available credit. Add a collapse in real estate values and carnage in the automotive and airline industries and the picture looks grim indeed. [...more]

Economics, Energy, Environment, Government Comments (0)

Peak Oil and The Psychology of Work

This is a preliminary attempt to explore the relationship between the current predicament facing humanity arising out of an exploding population facing planetary resource limitations, in other words known as overshoot, and the psychology of work inherent in the human species. [...more]

Energy, Environment, Psychology, Scientific News Comments (0)

Peak Oil, Peak Food

The single greatest challenge facing our modern economic food chain is the insanely unnatural low cost of food to the consumer, making the simple and necessary act of eating dependent on food that is almost free. The global edifice of cheap food rests on the volatility of a single input; the exponentially depleting supply of easy, cheap oil. We are gorging ourselves at the $1.99 all-you-can-eat oil buffet. Food is too cheap, a "correction" is coming, and there is not a damn thing anybody can do about it. [...more]

Consumerism, Diet, Energy, Environment, Health, Hunger, Social Justice, Sustainability Comments (0)

The one thing depleting faster than oil is the credibility of those measuring it

I don't know when global oil supplies will start to decline. I do know that another resource has already peaked and gone into free fall: the credibility of the body that's meant to assess them. Last week two whistleblowers from the International Energy Agency alleged that it has deliberately upgraded its estimate of the world's oil supplies in order not to frighten the markets. [...more]

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